iCloud Drive – The New Storage Plans That Will Give Dropbox a Run for Its Money

Both regular users and developers get far more storage options for far less

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iCloud so far hasn’t been much of an online storage solution for general usage, such as storing everything you want handy in a single folder, accessible anytime, anywhere. Starting this fall, it will do all that and then some, all thanks to the introduction of iCloud Drive.

With the release of iOS 8 and OS X Yosemite this fall, iCloud will behave more like Dropbox. Equally advantageous are the new storage plans proposed by Apple: 5 gigabytes free, 20 gigabytes for just $0.99 (€0.72) per month, 200 gigabytes for $3.99 (€2.92) per month, and 1 terabyte for pricing yet to be announced.

Another key perk has to be the new folder-view brought forth by iCloud Drive. You’ll soon be able to use your iCloud allowance in the same way you use Dropbox and Google Drive – just drag a file inside to sync it. Users won’t have to open separate applications to access certain files beforehand, making for a more friendly overall experience.

The accompanying CloudKit tool for developers is also pretty exciting. According to Apple, “With CloudKit, you can focus on your client-side app development and let iCloud eliminate the need to write server-side application logic. CloudKit provides you with Authentication, private and public database, structured and asset storage services - all for free with very high limits.”